MVL Knowledge Bowl teams meet Thursdays after school to practice for the season. Generally, the interscholastic meets are scheduled for January through March. These meets take place during school hours at the various host schools. Five regular season meets are planned and post season competitions include sub-regional, regional, and state meets. In addition, MVL competes in the Tomahawk Conference Knowledge Bowl Meet in February.

A typical meet begins with a sixty-question written round. Five-member teams collaborate on answering these multiple choice questions. Based on the scores of the written round, the teams are ranked for the ensuing four oral rounds.

Each oral round is comprised of forty-five questions read to a group of three teams, which compete for the right to answer. One point is given for each correct answer. After each round of forty-five questions, the teams are ranked, and the next round places the teams with the closest scores in the same room. Sub-regional, regional, and state meets have five oral rounds instead of four.

Depending on the number of teams at a given competition, three to five teams are given recognition of accomplishment, often comprised of ribbons for team members and trophies for the schools.